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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Weakness Policy
- Primal Clash
- #142/160

Date Reviewed:
Sept. 21, 2017

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 2.13
Expanded: 2.13
Limited: 2.56

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being horrible.  3 ... average.  5 is awesome.

Back to the main COTD Page


aroramage

Weakness Policy removes the weakness from a Pokemon, but I don't think that's changed much in terms of utility since I last reviewed the card a couple years back in Primal Clash. Guess it's nice to see it get reprinted at least. 

Rating 

Standard: 2/5 (still as niche as ever though) 

Expanded: 2/5 (and still as likely to take up room in your deck as ever) 

Limited: 2.5/5 (not even the impact of GX can shift that) 

Arora Notealus: Still feel they could've done something different with Weakness Policy, namely relating to damage. If you'd like my full opinion of this card, check it out here. 

Next Time: RAGE!! RAGE EVERYWHERE!!


Otaku

This Throwback Thursday, we look at Weakness Policy (XY: Primal Clash 142/160, 164/160; SM: Burning Shadows 126/147), a Trainer-Item that is also a Pokémon Tool, which allows you to ignore the Weakness of the Pokémon to which it is attached.  Trainers have a bit of worthwhile general support but no competitive counters in Standard and Modified play.  Item support is rare and usually deck-specific but Item counters are really common in Expanded and somewhat prominent in Standard.  Tool-supporting effects are a bit more common than either of the previous two, but Tool counters are abundant, with the big concern right now being Field Blower, as it allows a player to discard a Tool and a Stadium card or two Tools from in play (and belonging to either player).  Both Tools and Stadium cards are still major aspects of the metagame but Field Blower (and its predecessors) make it important that Stadiums and Tools provide some benefit on your own turn before your opponent has a chance to discard them.  On your own turn, it is almost impossible to take advantage of having your Weakness nullified, but most decks are not running four Field Blower, so there’s a decent chance Weakness Policy may avoid being discarded.  Unfortunately, there is a more than decent chance Weakness Policy won’t matter.  Too low of HP, and Weakness won’t matter; the attacker scores a OHKO or 2HKO regardless of Weakness.  Too high of HP and the Pokémon in question is unlikely to be OHKO’d even with Weakness.  With 11 Types in the TCG, and (I think) nothing modern having more than one Weakness, it also takes a bit of misfortune for the Weakness of something important to also belong to a popular deck. 

Still, there are a few decks that might consider this, mostly among Stage 2 Pokémon-GX like Gardevoir-GX and Metagross-GX.  At this point, the issue is that you’re using the one Tool most Pokémon are allowed to have attached at a time and filling that slot with Weakness Policy instead of something more useful, like Choice Band or Float Stone.  Still, I am glad it returned to Standard play, even if only for these few cases.  The original printing of this card made Weakness Policy legal for the last half of the 2014-2015, all of the 2015-2016, and all of the 2016-2017 Standard Formats as XY: Primal Clash officially released on February 4, 2015.  This most recent printing kept it from missing any of the 2017-2018 Standard Format and will almost certainly keep it around for the 2018-2019 and maybe even the 2019-2020 Standard Formats.  This isn’t much of a Throwback, so why are we looking at Weakness Policy?  Besides being reprinted in the most recent expansion, besides us having last looked at it over two years ago, it has some distant and not-so-distant older cousins: Weakness Guard (Aquapolis 141/147), Protective Orb (EX: Unseen Forces 90/115), and Bubble Coat (DP: Legends Awakened 129/146). 

Weakness Guard officially goes back to January 15, 2003, which means it was legal for the last half of the 2002-2003 and all of the 2003-2004 Standard Formats.  Surprisingly it released as a “normal Trainer”, or what we now call an “Item” card and not a Pokémon Tool.  Instead, it was like PlusPower or Defender, an Item you may attach to one of your Pokémon, enabled to do this by part of its effect text.  Said text also states that it is discarded at the end of your opponent’s next turn and that while attached to a Pokémon, that Pokémon has no Weakness.  We never reviewed it, and I neither recall it being a big deal or a total waste back in the day.  Too bad my memory isn’t what it once was, so if another source contradicts that, it is probably right.  Protective Orb officially released on August 22, 2005, so it was legal for the very end of the 2004-2005, all of the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 Standard Formats.  This one also predates the Trainer-Item designation, but it is one and also a Pokémon Tool.  It can only be attached to one of your Evolved Pokémon that is not a Pokémon-ex, and it discards itself should that Pokémon become a Pokémon-ex or a Basic.  The Pokémon with it attached has no Weakness.  We reviewed this one twice, the first time almost exactly 12 years ago, then again more like 11 years ago.  I’m the only one who weighed in on the first review, where I seemed to think it reasonably useful; it scored very high in the second review, so I’m assuming (hoping?) that it had proven itself by then.  There were some effective ways to discard Protective Orb, and this was a time when attacks could get high enough that Weakness transformed a 2HKO into a OHKO. 

Bubble Coat dates back to August 20, 2008, so it barely snuck into the 2008-2009 and was present for all of the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 Standard Formats.  Another Pokémon Tool that counts as an Item but released as a “normal Trainer”, Bubble Coat can be attached to any Pokémon that doesn’t already have a Tool attached to it.  As it is an older card, I think it predates anything that can have multiple Tools attached at the same time, so I don’t know if this rules text overrides the text of those specific cards or not.  Its effect is that the Pokémon with it attached has no Weakness but it discards itself at the end of a turn where the Pokémon in question is damaged by an opponent’s attack.  This card released around the time I was having to cut way back on playing the Pokémon TCG but we can look at its Pojo review from about 9 years ago (2 months after it released).  Except the reviewers split in their opinion of it and I can’t really remember how well it performed.  A bit of an anticlimactic end to our trip down history lane, but it beats me ranting about how broken x2 Weakness is for the TCG, right?  Just to be clear, damage doubling Weakness is a serious problem, as it causes massive swings in damage based on matchups, though it isn’t the worst issue with the original or modern Pokémon TCG. 

Ratings 

Standard: 2/5 
Expanded:
2/5 
Limited:
3.25/5 

Conclusion 

Weakness Policy isn’t particularly old, but its family history does extend back to the first few years of the TCG.  It also isn’t particularly useful to most decks, though it is functional as few Pokémon lack Weakness; it could become an important play for some of the bigger Pokémon trying to avoid being OHKO’d.


Vince

Weakness Policy is a Pokemon Tool card originally released in XY Primal Clash.  Its purpose is to remove the X2 weakness on the Pokemon this tool is attached to.  This is good such that the opponent has to deal the total damage to land KOs without relying on damage multipliers.  Unfortunately, Field Blower can get rid of this obstacle and some decks can still reach OHKO levels without relying on weakness.

 

Ratings:

 

Standard: 1.5/5

Expanded: 1.5/5

Limited: 4/5


Retro

            Well, well. Look what card we have here. It’s a very good consumable item on Pokémon that can’t afford to waste a turn to boost its stats, or has methods that can exploit the side effect of this item. It’s Weakness Policy, and it’s a god send. What Weakness Policy does is that it doubles the Attack and Special Attack when said Pokémon is hit with a super-effective move. However, when it is knocked off, the item will not activate, so bear that in mind. It is a very good item for Pokémon such as Aegislash and Dragonite, both of which has massive offensive stats yet they have great defensive measures so that Weakness Policy can benefit them well. And its TCG counterpart? It doesn’t have anything to do with stat boosting. Not even a sliver of that thought comes to mind.

            What Weakness Policy does instead is that it removes the Weakness of the Pokémon that holds it.  It does work wonders on paper and especially back in its glory days where it is a very good card on decks that had Pokémon with the Theta Double Ancient Trait. Such Pokémon like Gyarados and Mega Tyranitar-EX (XY Ancient Origins) with those Traits, it made them rather invincible and allows them to wreck stuff more easily. As long as the opponent has no Tool removal items such as Startling Megaphone (XY Flashfire) or Field Blower (SM Guardians Rising), it made swift killing by Weakness impossible, and because those Pokémon has the Theta Double Ancient Trait that allows them to wear 2 Tool cards at once, they can actually use some other active cards such as Choice Band (SM Guardians Rising) or Muscle Band (XY Base Set) or other utility tools like Lucky Helmet (XY Ancient Origins).

            But alas, since what it does is that it only removes Weakness, which is a passive effect; this card is considered a passive Tool card. Much like the Wishful Baton and Bodybuilding Dumbbells we reviewed last week, it’s your opponent that will decide how they will approach the card. They can remove it with cards like Field Blower (SM Guardians Rising), switch their target to another Pokémon without the item with cards like Guzma (SM Burning Shadows) or Escape Rope, or they can just attack with the strongest Pokémon they had and just remove the Pokémon and the Tool all at once. It is the exact reason why Weakness Policy isn’t a very meta card when it is first released in XY Primal Clash, and it might be the reason why it will not be another meta card now.

Rating:

Standard: 3/5 (Just another filler Tool card that might not even see much play with the popularity of active Items like Choice Band.)

Expanded: 3/5 (Exactly the same reason as why it isn’t good in Standard.)

Limited: 3/5 (Type matchups are a bit erratic in the Limited format, so Weakness Policy is extremely situational.)

Next on SM Burning Shadows:
Is it a Full Retaliation yet?


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